America’s Deadliest Cars

There are many measures to determine car safety, and one is to examine driver death rates per vehicle. Data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety released this week identified the most dangerous cars on the road based on this measure.

Most of the models that have the highest driver fatality rates are small cars with structures that are less able to absorb the brunt of crashes. Five of the 10 cars with the most driver fatalities are hatchbacks, while three are small sedans. Meanwhile, all of the cars with the lowest driver death rates were either large luxury cars or SUVs.

According to IIHS, 4-door minicars have the worst death rate at 87 per 1 million registered vehicles, while 4-wheel drive large luxury SUVs have the lowest with six driver deaths per 1 million registered vehicles.

The data come from IIHS, a nonprofit research organization funded by auto insurers. The IIHS measured over 200 vehicles – 2014 models or equivalent – between 2012 and 2015. Only vehicles with at least 100,000 registered vehicles between 2012-2015 were considered.